Wolfenstein 3D

B.J. Blaskowicz will make his return this month in Wolfenstein: The New Order. Although many may have brushed the game off last year as just another mindless shooter, the game has come a long way. The hands-on demo shown at PAX East was impressive enough for doubters to reconsider their position on Wolfenstein.
At its heart, Wolfenstein has always been about straightforward, gory, and fast action. Wolfenstein 3D birthed the first-person shooter genre and put Id Software on the map. Players take the role of B.J. Blaskowicz, who launches a one-man battle against an army of Nazis. There were some efforts to bring the series back into the spotlight, including a supernaturally themed game developed by Raven Software and published by Activision in 2009. However, none managed to make Wolfenstein relevant again.

The last we heard of a movie based on Wolfenstein was five years ago, when the Writers Guild strike gummed up the works. But you can't keep a good bad idea down, because distributor Panorama Media and producer Samuel Hadida have announced that Castle Wolfenstein is back on-track.

Canadian director Roger Avary, who won an Academy Award for co-writing Pulp Fiction, is slated to direct the film. His other work hasn't been as highly regarded, consisting of writing credits for Silent Hill and directing credit for Killing Zoe, which was executive produced by Quentin Tarantino. Avary has been attached to direct the film from the beginning, but by the time the WGA strike ended in February 2008 he was facing a charge for vehicular manslaughter, to which he later pleaded guilty.

The movie will follow two lead characters, a US Army Captain and British Special Agent on a top-secret mission to Castle Wolfenstein. Hitler himself is paying a visit to the titular castle to debut a new weapon to his Nazi buddies. The two strapping lads have to fight Hitler's SS Paranormal Division, and presumably destroy the weapon so that Hitler can't take over "ze vurld."

The announcement claims the film will be an action-adventure reminiscent of Captain America and Inglorious Basterds. It seems a little counter-intuitive to acknowledge the existence of Basterds, though. At that point, why would a Wolfenstein movie need to happen at all?

Gamers have been waiting a long time since Ken Levine and company unveiled BioShock Infinite. And the wait is only getting longer, with the game now delayed to 2013. Could a new multiplayer mode be behind the lengthy delay? Then, the creators of Ratchet & Clank and Resistance spread their wings to social games. Outernauts is a new effort from Insomniac... but why does it sound so familiar? Finally, the classic FPS Wolfenstein celebrates its birthday by going completely free to play.

What did you get yer old pal B.J. Blazkowicz for his birthday? Come now, surely you didn't forget that it's the 20th anniversary of Wolfenstein 3D's launch this month? Luckily, id Software and Bethesda haven't, and have given us all a free browser-based version of its seminal shooter. John Carmack has also given a director's commentary, full of the usual fascinating Carmackchat.

You can play the snazzy HTML 5 version of Wolf 3D if you're browsing in Firefox 10, Chrome 16, Internet Explorer 9, Safari 5, or newer. Fingers crossed that your work computer is updated vaguely frequently.

The iOS version is also going temporarily free in the App Store some time later today.

id Software got distracted by Doom and Quake after the release of a Wolf 3D prequel, but the series returned in 2001 with Return to Castle Wolfenstein from Grey Matter and Nerve Software. Splash Damage followed this with the superb free multiplayer spin-off Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory, then the last entry in the series was Raven's Wolfenstein in 2009.